Author Topic: France just elected a pro-American right winger as president (Read 591 times)

Real American · « **on:** May 06, 2007, 05:42:56 PM »

Props to France for waking up and seeing the light.

A Modern Lafayette?
The election of conservative Nicolas Sarkozy as president of France likely means stronger ties with the United States.

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/18519993/site/newsweek/site/newsweek/

May 6, 2007 - Does France's new president speak American? Sure looks that way. Conservative Nicolas Sarkozy has defeated his Socialist Party rival, Ségolène Royal, by a margin of 53 percent to 47 percent. Royal, the first woman ever to come this close to the French presidency, conceded within minutes. So now the man set to govern the oldest (and arguably the most temperamental) ally of the United States for the next five years is someone whose message will be easy to translate: lower taxes, harder work for more money, greater consumption as the key to more employment and ever tougher measures against criminals and terrorists.

Braving derision by political rivals branding him the new "poodle" of President George W. Bush, who has long been as unpopular in France as he is these days in the United States, Sarkozy made a high-profile visit to Washington last September. Just weeks ago, the French candidate published an American edition of his campaign manifesto, "Testimony: France in the Twenty-First Century" (Pantheon), with a new introduction that makes him sound like the best friend the Yanks have had in Paris since the Marquis de Lafayette.

How Sarkozy's ideas will play with the notoriously protest-prone population he now has to lead is an open question. Testifying to the confrontational mood he brings to the office, police contingents were reinforced today in the same outer-city ghettos that erupted with inchoate, incendiary anger in 2005, while Sarkozy was in charge of public order as the minister of interior. Large contingents of cops were also on hand in Place de la Concorde, the heart of central Paris, in case victory celebrations by the right wing degenerated into outright confrontation between Sarkozy's supporters and those who hate and fear the man—or just want to use the occasion to raise hell.

"The choice of Nicolas Sarkozy is a dangerous choice," Royal said as campaigning drew to an end on Friday, claiming she had to "sound the alarm" about "the violence and brutality that will be spawned in the country. Everyone knows it, but no one says it. It is a kind of taboo." Sarkozy responded with undisguised contempt: "Ah, well, she wasn't in a good mood this morning. It must be the polls."

While Sarkozy's ability to ram through major changes in the way France and the French do business looms as the imponderable and possibly ominous theme of the weeks to come—he has vowed to push his programs into law in 100 days—his pitch to Americans is clear, concise and conciliatory.

Sarkozy writes in the preface to the U.S. edition of "Testimony," "I have no intention of apologizing for feeling an affinity with the greatest democracy in the world." Opting more for Bushism than Gaullism, Sarkozy extols the transatlantic alliance with the United States "that enabled France and Western Europe to preserve their freedom."

While he tends to wriggle around the question of French opposition to the war in Iraq, hinting he would eschew the kind of "verbosity" shown by outgoing President Jacques Chirac when Sarkozy was serving in his cabinet, the former interior minister is unquestionably a hard-liner in the wider fight against terrorists. "Now at the start of the 21st century, the United States and France again stand together in the same camp against a serious threat to global freedom." Every time "terrorism strikes," he says, "it is freedom that is the target. Facing such a threat, free countries have no choice but to pool their forces and work together."

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Indeed, quiet but effective cooperation between Paris and Washington in counterterrorism reached new heights during Sarkozy's two terms as interior minister, and that's not the least of the reasons he has been received so warmly in the past by U.S. officials, including Bush. "I have always done all I can—even when our two countries disagreed, as we did over the Iraq war, for example—to ensure that our security services cooperated on a daily basis, in full transparency." (Transparent to each other, that is. Only rarely did the extent leak into the public sphere.)

What may be most appealing and accessible about this son of a Hungarian refugee (albeit an aristocratic one) who has worked in politics since he was a teenager to become president of France is his faith in the American dream. "In the United States there are all sorts of opportunities for those who know how to seize them. Americans don't ask about the diplomas or social origins of someone who comes up with a new idea; they just ask whether the idea is good or not. Past failures [and here we should say Sarkozy himself had quite a few] if they're honorable ones, should be seen as an opportunity to learn, and not as a stain on one's reputation."

But, manifestos and rhetoric aside, just how "American" is Sarkozy, really? During his tenure the French passion for gloire and the sometimes eccentric attachment to "exceptionalism" may not change on some key issues. "Certain aspects of American society would never suit France," he writes. "I am proud, for example, that France devotes a large part of its resources to provide a social safety net for those who have the least. I believe that possession of handguns is too dangerous not to be strictly regulated. I admire the way the French people are interested in global affairs ... Finally, I like the way that France seeks to give its immigrants a new identity within the Republic, rather than continue to define them according to their ethnic origins. These are not minor differences. They will remain part of what is unique to France." (Some American political candidates might consider whether there's something to learn here ...)

But the darker side of Sarkozy—the darker "American" side, if you will—is reminiscent of those Republican candidates in the United States in the 1970s and '80s who set out to capture the unsavory votes of erstwhile bigots like Alabama Gov. George Wallace while distancing themselves from the tainted man himself. In France, the equivalent figure is perennial ultra-right candidate Jean-Marie Le Pen, who stunned the nation by making it into the runoff in the 2002 presidential elections. Sarkozy, playing to working-class French voters who feel overwhelmed by foreign immigrants, even adapted a loaded phrase from the troubled America of the 1960s to attract Le Pen's voters today: "France, love it or leave it." Since 2002 at least, Sarkozy's law and order rhetoric tended to make France seem a more dangerous place to live than it actually was.

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Most importantly, Sarkozy's economic ideas—so familiar to Americans—remind the French of what they fear most about unrestrained capitalism in the United States and around the world. It's the notion, quite bluntly laid out by Federal Reserve Chief Alan Greenspan in the late 1990s, that "job insecurity"—what the French call "précarité"—is actually a good thing because it helps grease the economic machine. For a society that's gotten used to the 35-hour work week, Sarkozy's campaign catchphrase, "work more to earn more," sounds plainly foreign.

Will Sarkozy's grand plans for revitalizing France bring the kind of progress he promises, or massive unrest, or, perhaps both? He's not the first French leader to promise a revamp of the country's economic machinery. Twelve years ago President Chirac tried to push through similar measures, only to back down in the face of nationwide strikes and protests that shut down the country for weeks.

Sarkozy, the self-styled man of action, loves to run against the clock. For months a digital counter on his Web site has been ticking off the days, hours and seconds until the results of the election contest would be made public at 8 p.m. Sunday night in Paris. He's given himself 100 days after the election to get the legislation he needs, even though elections for the national assembly won't be held until the middle of next month (campaigns for those seats are just beginning).

France may not be able to keep up with him, in fact, and the French, put to the test, may not want to. But if at first Sarkozy doesn't succeed, he will doubtless pick up another maxim from American culture, "try, try again."

For more than 75 articles outlining the background of the French elections and tracing developments throughout the campaign, as well as events following the release of results, visit Le Blog Présidentiel.

jeromechickenbone · « **Reply #1 on:** May 06, 2007, 05:59:44 PM »

^^^does this mean you can stop ordering "freedom fries"?

virtuoso · « **Reply #2 on:** May 06, 2007, 06:19:39 PM »

Another war monger c'est fantastique....mais pourquoi?

Real American · « **Reply #3 on:** May 06, 2007, 06:27:25 PM »

Why is he a war monger? Seriously man, you are brainwashed.

virtuoso · « **Reply #4 on:** May 06, 2007, 06:34:44 PM »

Is the american administration war mongerers?
YES and this is a pro leader to their "cause"
I really did not feel like replying with a more detailed answer than that simply because you are a kool aid drinker basically.

By the way here is a little bit of advice somehow switch off the "america fighting for your freedom" of team america

Don Rizzle · « **Reply #5 on:** May 07, 2007, 02:22:26 AM »

this is good we do not need any more socialists in europe

Chief · « **Reply #6 on:** May 07, 2007, 07:02:15 AM »

Quote from: virtuoso on May 06, 2007, 06:19:39 PM

Another war monger c'est fantastique....mais pourquoi?

LMFAO you really think royal with cheese is a better candidate?

France needs Sarkozy right now. I am glad the french finally did something good for themselves.